The present invention opens and closes foot coverings without the use of the hands, bending down at the waist or even sitting. This feature is especially helpful to the over six million seniors that, the National Golf Association says, play golf in the United States. Sore backs and a loss of balance suffered by many seniors makes changing their shoes painful and even dangerous.
Golf shoes marketed 50 years ago provided a lace-less, lever operated, shoe opening and closing mechanism that still required the use of the hands combined with bending at the waist or sitting. This earlier design experienced stick slip resistance to lever operation when the shoes were new that became increasingly difficult to operate when wires rusted and dirt accumulated in the mechanism. The earlier design held promise for keeping moisture out but did not form a water seal. The earlier design had no provision for installation on shoes of varying lace eyelet spacing. The earlier design lacked provisions to open and close the shoe with the action of the opposite foot. Nor did it adapt to shoes with varying lace hole or eyelet spacing nor a means of changing exterior color to blend with the color of the shoe being converted.